When he found the room, he dropped to his knees at Claire’s side.
“Unbelievable.” He lifted the baby out of her arms. He nuzzled her head and breathed her in, his eyes closed. “Hello, sweet thing. Hello, baby girl.” Tears streamed down his face. “I’m so sorry that I missed your entrance, but wow! You know how to put on a show!” He laughed and laughed, and then he rose up to kiss Claire hard on the lips. “She’s beautiful. And perfect. And so are you.” He kissed Claire again and then handed the baby back to her. “Okay, everybody. Let’s take this spectacular baby home.”
Of course they named her Alice. Claire joked that they should call her Alice Lake, but they named her Alice December instead. This was after some discussion, because now Claire wondered if she’d had her dates wrong. Maybe she’d conceived in November? Or maybe Alice was just a bit early. She wasn’t too small, though, no matter how Claire calculated the weeks, and so they went with Alice December after all.
When they got home, the midwives were waiting on the front step. Beside them, propped against the wall, was Dad’s painting of us in the meadow.
We all stood and stared at it. All lined up: the boys and Claire, Dad with the baby in his arms, Salix, and me.
“But how…?” I touched it. Except for a scratch along the bottom and a crack at one corner of the frame, it was fine.
“Let’s have a good look at your beautiful baby,” one of the midwives said.
When Dad just stood there, Claire took Alice and ushered the boys inside, and Salix, too.
“Was it you?” I asked.
He shook his head.
Mr. Heidelman’s door opened, and he leaned out with a great big smile on his face. “Congratulations!” He saw us staring at the painting. “I brought it up from the alley. I thought you might be ready to have it back now. My restoration guy will come, my treat. Go. Go now and be with your baby. I’ve ordered pizza. It will arrive in ten minutes.”
—
Inside, the midwives clucked and murmured and fawned over Alice and Claire, and me too. “What you did was amazing! Maybe you’ll become a midwife.”
“Not a chance.”
“Well, you should be very proud of catching your baby sister.”
That part was for sure.
And it was amazing.
When Dad brought the painting in, he hung it right back up, damage and all.
“I’m not sure that I want it repaired,” he said.
“Me neither,” I said.
—
After supper, Salix and the boys and I went down to unpack the van. Owen scrambled over the seats, obviously looking for something.
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t find Hibou,” Owen wailed. “She’s gone!”
“She’s not gone. We’ll find her.” Where had I last seen the owl? “Hang on, hang on. We’ll find her.” I rooted through the bag of damp swimsuits. Salix emptied the bag of buckets and shovels onto the ground.
“Did you take her inside?”
“No!”
“Where did you last have her?”
“By the van. When Alice was born. I think.”
“That’s right.” Salix nodded. “You had it when we were sitting on the big rock.”
“Hibou is a girl.”
“Let’s go check inside,” I said. “Just in case you took her in.”
“I didn’t.”
“Let’s go check anyway.”
Hibou was not inside. We looked in every likely place, and a whole bunch of unlikely places too. Like the fridge.
“Why would she be in there?” I held open the door while he checked the shelves.
“I got the milk out for supper!” He sank to the floor and covered his face with his hands. “Oh, no. I remember. I put her down when I picked up King Percival.”
“By the rock?” I said.
“Yes!” Owen wailed. “I have to go get her.” He leapt up and ran for the door.
“Owen?”
“Owen!” Claire gave Alice to Dad. “You can’t walk all the way to the lake, honey.”
“I’m going to get Hibou.” He opened the door.
“I bet she’ll end up in the lost and found,” Salix offered. “You can get her the next time you’re up there.”
“I have to get her now,” Owen said. “I’ll hitchhike.”
“No, you won’t,” Dad said.
“Mom hitchhiked across the country when she was a kid.”
“I was sixteen!” Claire protested. “You are not hitchhiking to Alice Lake.”
“I have to go get her!”
“Here.” Dad deftly shifted Alice into the crook of his arm. He dug the van keys out of his pocket and gave them to me. “Do you mind?”
“Right now?”
“Sure, why not?”
“I delivered your baby in the back of a van in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere and now you’re going to send me back up there to get a stuffed owl?”
“Please go get her?” Owen clamped his arms around my waist. “Please, please, please?”
I glanced at Salix. “You don’t mind driving?”
“I’m in,” she said. “I’m so wired right now I probably won’t sleep for the next three days.”
—
By the time we got to Alice Lake, the gate was locked. Salix parked the van and climbed over. I had a flashlight, but I didn’t want to turn it on. We walked along, holding hands under just a sliver of moon and the dark all around, the trees towering black against the sky. I only turned on the flashlight to find the right rock, and Hibou behind it, just where Owen said she would be.
—
On the way home, we drove with the windows open. The wind was warm on our faces and smelled like summer—blackberries and dry grass.
Marvelous. Causing wonder, admiration, or astonishment—surprising, extraordinary. Yes to all of those things. And I didn’t mean just Alice, even though her birth was marvelous, in every single possible way. I meant me. It was marvelous that I had done it. I was astonished and surprised. It was extraordinary for anyone, but especially for me. Maeve Glover was not someone who could deliver a baby in a parking lot, but she’d done it anyway. I admired myself for it. I was astonished at what I could do. And I wondered what else I could do. Maybe I would always wear the heavy boots of anxiety and the prickly coat of worry, but maybe—even still—I could just be a person who belongs in the world, even if it’s hard.
“I want to show you something.” Salix pulled off at Porteau Cove and parked the van beside the beach. “Come on.”
I got out and stared up at the starry sky, and the glassy, calm waters. “It’s beautiful.”
“That’s not what I wanted to show you.” She took my hand and led me to the water. “Wait here.”
She picked up a stick and swished it through the water, and the most magical thing happened: a million filaments of light sparked up from under the surface.
“What is that?” I trailed my hand through the streaks of light.
“Bioluminescence.” Salix knelt beside me. She explained about the phytoplankton lighting up as the water was agitated. “Scientists don’t really know why they do it. They have some guesses. But mostly it’s a mystery.”
“It’s amazing.”
“I’ll show you something even more amazing.”